Through the Olive Trees is essential viewing for students of film form, lovers of slow cinema, and anyone who believes that art can be simultaneously self-aware and deeply sincere. It is not an easy film, but it is a rewarding one—a gentle, profound, and ultimately mysterious work that lingers in the mind like the last light over a hillside. Kiarostami doesn’t give us the answer to whether Hossein and Tahereh end up together. Instead, he gives us something rarer: the courage to live with the question.
Alone, on a quiet evening, with no distractions. Let the olive trees work their slow magic. Through the olive trees- Abbas Kiarostami
Close-Up (also by Kiarostami), The Second Circle (Sokurov), Days of Heaven (Malick—for the long shots of rural labor), or the meta-films of Charlie Kaufman. Through the Olive Trees is essential viewing for
